From nearly every angle, vistas are designed to galvanize the building with the UAB campus and the city of Birmingham. From one classroom, look right and Vulcan can be seen. Turn your head 90 degrees and the Stephens Center and UAB campus appear. Robert Palazzo, UAB’s College of Arts and Sciences dean, credits the architect.

“One of the really nice thing that Randall did was to supply visual continuity to Birmingham and the rest of the campus,” he said.

Beneath its soaring, glassed-in atrium, the flexible gallery spaces and lecture hall will be put directly to use on Thursday, Jan. 16, when the building opens to the public. Two exhibitions, one of which showcases the university’s holdings, will open in one of the small galleries. The other, titled “Material Evidence,” has more far-reaching implications for visual arts at the university and the city of Birmingham.

Named for principal donors Judy and Hal Abroms and Ruth and Marvin Engel, the institute seeks to bridge UAB’s resources with those of the Birmingham Museum of Art, and “Material Evidence” is the first example. It is curated by BMA’s Executive Director Gail Andrews, who drew from private collections of Birmingham residents, an unusually rich reserve of art.

“‘Material Evidence’ highlights the excellent and diversity of many of these private collections,” Andrews said. “We are incredibly grateful to them for their enthusiasm for this project and their willingness to share these objects with the public.”

“It shows just how vast the attention to art is in this community, in terms of personal treasures and stewardship of art,” he said. “There is a culture of people who are really serious about art. I haven’t seen that in a lot of other cities.”

Next to that exhibition is another that highlights UAB’s collection, which will change every few months, once the collection is placed in storage in the building.

“The entire collection will be kept on site,” said John Fields, interim gallery director and curator of the permanent collection. “We haven’t had proper storage facilities in the past. The permanent collection is a combination of student work to art by James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Pablo Picasso, and now a pretty impressive Andy Warhol collection, which is still stored at the Museum of Art.”

Working with other institutions on various projects is one of AEIVA's priorities.

“A major public research university partnering with a major urban museum is a pretty powerful combination,” said Palazzo. “If we maintain our sensibilities and look out for each other, it could bring more opportunity on the national and international levels than we could possible have done individually.”

“There are grants appearing for the first time ever, where a university is influenced by a city’s museum,” said Theresa Bruno, Alys Stephens Center’s corporate board chair. “I haven’t been in any gallery of this caliber that is also a teaching facility.”

Bruno hopes that the university’s arts facilities will create a “cultural corridor” that spans Tenth Avenue South, from AEIVA’s sculpture garden to the Alys Stephens Center’s Engel Plaza. Plans are already in the works for an across-the-street expansion of the “Light Dreams” projection show in May, and a textile show that promises to draw attention to the “corridor.”

“The textile artist Amanda Browder will be draping this building, and also the Stephens Center,” she said. “It’s a mirror and a conversation between the two buildings.”

Still unresolved is the issue of crossing Tenth Ave. South. Parking for Stephens Center events remains behind AEIVA, and with the facility’s opening, that activity that is expected to increase.

“We have to think about how that will be treated,” said Palazzo. “There is a safety issue there, and the possibility for larger-scale exhibits. We’ll be working a lot with the city to alleviate the hazards. We’ve been going back and forth lately. We’re hoping for some consideration.”

A tunnel underneath the street was one idea early on, but it had to be scrapped because a river bed flows under the street. Another solution is already in place -- police controlling traffic at various Stephens Center events.

As for AEIVA itself, Palazzo hopes the combination of exhibition and classroom space will enhance the education experience for UAB students.

“From an academic standpoint, that is the beauty of this,” he said. “We will have instruction, art making, art history and exhibition all in the same building. The ability to bring all of those things together will give our students an immersive cultural experience. We’ll be able to approach education in a really comprehensive way that we weren’t able to do before.”See the previous post.